La Cucaracha Zwolle
I had only one evening, so also only one dinner, during my recent city trip Zwolle. I decided to go for Mexican food at La Cucaracha.
Why there?
Well, the main reason was that this Mexican restaurant is owned and run by our friends Silvio Platje and Jo Routledge. As I said in the first post about my city trip to Zwolle, we normally go to their house and have a delicious dinner there, instead of going into town.
Ofcourse we talk(-ed) about their business from time to time, but I never ate there.
Disclaimer
Silvio and Jo never suggested that or asked if I would eat there and they certainly did not ask me to blog about it nor did they pay me.
The idea came from me and me alone. I was genuinely curious and looking forward to seeing their restaurant with my own eyes and tasting the food for myself.
If I would have been disappointed, I would simply not have written anything about La Cucaracha. So -as always- you can rely upon the fact that whatever I DO write about it, is my honest opinion.
This is NOT a sponsored post, as (almost) none of my blogposts is. If it were, I would tell you.
Oh, and that specific day it was war between me and my camera. It had all kinds of errors and got blocked for hours. So my apologies to both my readers as to La cucaracha that the pictures did not turn out as good as I had hoped for.
Many pictures turned out extremely yellow. I should have changed the settings of my camera to the lights in the restaurant, but I clearly did a bad job. Sorry:-(. I adore the empty tins for lampshades though;-).
It’ll have to do, I’m afraid.
A bit of background on La Cucaracha
Popular restaurant with good reviews
This restaurant exists in Zwolle since more than 20 years and is still popular. Quite an achievement, I think.
It’s ranked on TripAdvisor #7 out of 143 restaurants in Zwolle and receives there 4 out of 5 ‘stars’.
On Iens it scores 8,1/10 and on Eet.nu the score is 8/10.
When I had my dinner, it was a thursday evening on a bitterly cold day. The ground floor was already packed when we arrived and the tables upstairs, where we were then seated, filled up quickly too.
No available tables left on the ground floor.
The second floor was still empty when we were seated, but this changed quickly.
Passionate owner with a vision
Silvio, who owns the restaurant, is really passionate about La Cucaracha. He genuinely cares about his guests as well as for his staff.
Keywords for him are: authenticity, high quality, and affordable.
Silvio on the left and his young chef on the right.
Platje is an entrepreneur with heart for his business. He’s in it for the long haul (more than 20 years, remember?) and he wants to give his clients a fab experience.
My review
The food
La Cucaracha’s cuisine is authentic Mexican cuisine.
The focus is on fresh ingredients (many of the herbs and peppers are even home-grown by Silvio!), high quality ingredients (they recently shifted to chickens that have had a better life. More expensive, but a responsible choice plus better-tasting meat.)
This restaurant started with slow cooking long before it became hip and fashionable, with some meats that are stewed overnight.
La Cucaracha prefers to work with seasonal ingredients.
The young, talented chef in the kitchen adds new items to the menu from time to time, without loosing all-time classics and signature dishes like La Cucaracha’s famous fajitas.
Jo and I during our dinner at La cucaracha, having fajitas.
It means that returning customers will always find the dishes they like since forever, but they can also try out something new.
What we had:
Tortilla chips with sour cream, home-made guacamole, cheese, salsa and chipotle.
Mini-empanadas and tostadas with beef and honey-chilli sauce. Mexican tapas; yummy!
Fajitas: beef, chicken, for me, and gamba’s for Jo.
Dessert: chocolate-cheese cake and ice-cream. OMG; these were A-MA-ZING!!!!
I can be quite short about how it was: it was delicious! Really. Highly recommended.
The menu has more than enough choices and if you don’t want to choose, then you can opt for the Tapas-sharing-menu.
The service
The staff was ever so sweet, accommodating and attentive. No complaints there.
The interior decoration and ambiance
As you know I’m very sensitive to the design and ambiance of a restaurant.
Well, La cucaracha is totally up my alley.
It’s Mexican-style, lots of kitsch and color, religious parafernalia, wrought-iron fences, metal tins for lampshades, donkey-pinatas…. I mean, what’s NOT to like?!
Donkey pinata’s it is!
For a moment I thought I had landed in my own living room. Hahaha….
I have lots of religious items in my living room as well.
Silvio and Jo really succeeded to create a unique, fun, Mexican atmosphere and a cosy, home-feeling.
Cosy corners in La Cucaracha.
Have you visited La Cucaracha? How was your experience?
I will be in Zwolle March 25, but I doubt whether we are going out for dinner. Which is a shame though as this looks really really tempting. What a good restaurant. And I love Mexican food.
Greetje